JACKSON, Miss. — A federal judge on Monday dismissed Brett Favre’s defamation lawsuit against fellow retired NFL player Shannon Sharpe, ruling that Sharpe used constitutionally protected speech on a sports broadcast when he criticized Favre’s connection to a welfare misspending case in Mississippi.
U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett ruled that Sharpe, a former tight end, was using “rhetorical hyperbole” in saying on air that Favre was “taking from the underserved,” that the former quarterback “stole money from people that really needed that money” and that someone would have to be a sorry person “to steal from the lowest of the low.”
Favre sued Sharpe in February, saying that the fellow Pro Football Hall of Fame member made “egregiously false” statements about him on the Fox Sports talk show “Skip and Shannon: Undisputed.” The case was moved to federal court in March, and Sharpe left the sports show in June.
Discussion of Mississippi welfare spending on “Undisputed” took place after extensive news coverage about allegations of Mississippi’s largest public corruption case.
Mississippi Auditor Shad White has said that from 2016 to 2019, the Mississippi Department of Human Services misspent more than $77 million from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program — money that was intended to help some of the poorest people in the U.S.
Prosecutors have said the department gave money to nonprofit organizations that spent it on projects favored by wealthy and well-connected people, such as a $5 million volleyball facility at the University of Southern Mississippi, a project for which Favre agreed to raise money.
Starrett wrote in his ruling Monday that Sharpe’s references to “taking” and “stole” referred to diverting TANF money “for purposes other than helping the underprivileged.”
“Similarly, Sharpe’s use of the words ‘people that really needed that money,’ the ‘lowest of the low,’ and ‘the…
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